by Thomas Cobb
“This is fucking living,” Nick says, building a ham sandwich. “A couple more years, we’re going to have shit like this every night.”
“Yeah, I hope you do,” Bad says, working on the roast beef. “But let’s get through tonight first.”
“You get this kind of stuff all the time?”
“I work clubs mostly. I get dinner and drinks.”
“You work on the gate?”
“Flat fee.”
“We get thirty-five percent over a guarantee of two hundred dollars.”
“I travel alone. I can’t check the gate. My agent sets a flat fee. I never have to deal with the money.”
“What does your agent take?”
“Fifteen percent.”
“Damn, is that worth it?”
“Agents are a pain in the butt. They’re bastards, all of them. And you’re damn right they’re worth it. If you’re going to do anything at all in the business, you better get yourself one.”
“Half an hour.” It’s Ralphie at the door. “Anything you guys need?”
“I guess we’re O.K.”
“I’ll be back in twenty minutes. While you’re on, I’ll be stage right. Any problems, let me know. Broken strings, that sort of stuff. Anything goes wrong, anything, make sure I’m the first to know.”
“Let’s tune them up,” Bad says. He tunes his and then gives the band each string, thumb up for flat, back down for sharp. “You all remember the intro?”
“Of course,” Nick says. “We’ve got it cold.”
“Play it for me.”
“Aw, for Christ sakes, we know it.”
“Play it for me.”
They go through the intro, the guitars and bass, the drummer tapping out the beat on the bottom of a chair. “Like I said, we know it.”
“Don’t come unwrapped. Things change out there. I know you know it. I want you to remember you know it.”
“Ten minutes,” Ralphie says. “Give me the instruments. We’re doing the last stage check. Problems?”
“Ready to work.”
“Good. Listen. I got your boxes of albums. Tommy told me to put them with the concessions up on the concourse. You can check with me later on tonight for an accounting, or we’ll just send the receipts along to Greene and Gold, whatever you want. Let me know after the show.”
“Shit.”
Ralphie leads them back up the ramp toward the stage. Along the way, they pass a couple of Tommy’s boys heading for the dressing room. When they make the final turn toward the stage, they can see the horseshoe of seats nearly full. The noise of the crowd is like a low grinding.
“Holy fucking shit,” Nick says.
“Just breathe,” Bad says, “get your breath steady. You’re fine.” His own heart is thumping like a broken cam. He inhales hard and holds it.
“In ninety seconds the houselights go down,” Ralphie says. “Get a good look at the stairs. There will be two guys at the side to help you up, but you got to climb yourself. Six steps, remember that. Count as you go. It’s going to be dark as hell until you reach the stage.”
When the lights go down, the crowd noise comes up, as if they were wired on the same switch. Noise rolls over them.
“Go,” Ralphie says.
The band moves up the steps to the stage. From the bottom of the steps, Bad can see them moving slowly across the dark stage, sees the instruments being lifted. From the corner of his eye, he sees Ralphie’s hand move, and the stage lights come up. Bob taps out four beats on his sticks, and the band moves into “Wildwood Flower.” Two bars in, Nick misses a chord.
“Shit,” Ralphie says.
“They’re O.K.,” Bad says, and starts up to the stage. When he moves from behind the stacked amplifiers into the clear stage, the crowd noise intensifies, and he feels his knees begin to wobble. At the edge of the clearing, he picks up his white Gretsch and moves to the center, the microphone pulling him like a beacon. When he reaches the mike, he picks his guitar cord from the stage, while Nick makes the intro: “Ladies and gentlemen, ‘The Wrangler of Love,’ Mr. Bad Blake.”
They are running a couple of beats behind what they have rehearsed, and when they reach the chorus, Bad is not ready, and has to just count the beat into the turnaround before he can start playing. The notes come back at him through the monitor pure and crisp. At the end of the song, the applause is politely enthusiastic.
“Thank you, Phoenix, Arizona,” he says. “It’s real good to be here tonight. Of course, at my age, it’s real good to be anywhere.” Applause and a little laughter. “This is a song I had a hit on a long time ago,” he says, “called ‘Love Came and Got Me.’ ” He will announce every song, just to make sure the band doesn’t get confused.
They stay with him for the whole set. They are not as sharp as Sureshot in Santa Fe, but they are steady and dependable. The steel guitar covers the ragged edges at the ends of the progression with long, sweeping wails.
They are three quarters of the way through the set, moving into “Faded Love,” when the crowd begins to stomp and cheer. Finally, he has struck some response in them. From the corner of his eye he can see someone moving up toward him. As he moves into the chorus, Tommy is up to the microphone with him, singing harmony.
I miss you, darling,
More and more every day,
As heaven would miss the stars above.
With every heartbeat,
I still think of you
And remember our faded love.
At the next verse, Tommy picks up his blue Adamas guitar and plays rhythm behind Bad. At the choruses, he moves up and sings the harmony. Halfway through the break, Bad steps back and offers the rest to Tommy, who plays it through his way, quickly hammering and pulling, trilling the final notes. He gives Bad a grin and a nod, and Bad takes it back and runs it through once more, duplicating Tommy’s moves, but elaborating on them, substituting triplets at the end. They harmonize the last chorus and bring it down.
“This is the man,” Tommy says, “who taught me to play that and just about everything else. I guess he can still teach, huh?” The crowd begins to cheer and Tommy steps back and waits, careful not to step on any of Bad’s applause. When it starts to die down, he says, “I’ll see you all in a little bit. I’m going to go back and listen to this man play.”
When they have finished “Slow Boat” there is no question of a curtain call. The band unplugs and waves. “You all know,” Bad says into the microphone, “that Tommy and me did an album a couple of years ago. You can’t get it at the record stores anymore, but we got some copies of it up at the concession stand. I’ll be up there in a little bit, if you’d like to have me sign some of them for you. Come by and say howdy. Thanks, and God bless you.”
As he’s leaving the stage, Ralphie grabs him. “Tommy would like you to join him in his set for ‘Please Release Me’ and ‘Cold, Cold Heart.’ I’ll cue you.”
“No,” Bad says. “This is Tommy’s show. I got records to sell.”
He moves through the crush of people on the concourse easily for a bit, until heads start to turn and people move up to pat him on the back and shake his hand. By the time he reaches the concession stand, people are waiting with copies of the record in their hands. He puts on his glasses and starts signing them on people’s backs. “Best Wishes, Bad Blake.”
“Is Tommy going to come up and sign them, too?” a couple of people ask.
“No,” Bad says. “I don’t think Tommy’s coming up.”
When the houselights start to flash the five-minute warning, there is still a sizable crowd waiting. A few move back toward their seats. “The show is about to start,” Bad says. “Why don’t you all get back to your seats and enjoy it. Maybe I can see you afterwards.” Thirty or forty remain, stubbornly waiting for him to sign their albums. He stays and signs even after the houselights go down and Tommy’s band starts up. The sound is crisp as new beans, and as he listens, he knows Tommy has paid a lot of money for these arrangements—piano,
horns, strings, as tight and methodical as Muzak.
He still has his back to the stage, signing albums, when he hears the reaction of the crowd, and then the repetitive hammering on the guitar. There is not even an introduction. He turns his head to the stage as Tommy, still in the same jeans and white shirt, with a high-crowned straw hat, begins his version of “Lost Highway.”
Back in the dressing room, the band is eating and drinking, listening to Tommy’s show through the intercom. From somewhere, girls have appeared, and the band is having its own little party. Bad makes his way through a couple of dancers to the bar. His case of Jack Daniel’s is well broken into. He pours a glass and leans back against the mirror to watch.
“I blew that intro,” Nick says. “Jesus, I’m sorry. I got out there and started shaking so hard I thought I was going to fall down.”
“It’s no problem. You’re not the first to do it. I wasn’t the first, either. Just forget it and have a good time.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever had this much fun in my life. Jesus, backing Bad Blake and Tommy Sweet on the same night.”
“Yeah,” Bad says, “it’s a goddamned bunch of fun, isn’t it?”
While the boys party, Bad eats Tommy’s food and drinks Tommy’s booze. He listens, through the intercom, to Tommy’s show. Even through the six-inch speaker, he can tell this show is as smooth as a baby’s butt. Though, my God, what a mess Tommy can make of good material. On “Bright Side,” his first hit, Tommy has cluttered the song with horns and strings until it is nearly a new number. He thinks of Marge and the things she used to do with Jell-O. She put fruit and nuts in it, whipped cream and ice cream, she whipped it and chopped it in pieces. She served it in bowls, cups and glasses, but it always came out Jell-O.
“Excuse me,” a red-haired girl in cowboy shirt and jeans says. “I want to get to the food here.” Bad smiles and steps aside. “You were very good. I enjoyed it. A real nice show.”
“Thanks, I appreciate it.”
As she bends over to get at the relishes, she shows off the Tommy Sweet patch on the rear pocket of her jeans.
“You with the tour?” Bad asks.
“Local radio,” she says. “I hit most of the shows. Linda Fuller.”
“Bad Blake. Linda, you a DJ?”
“Advertising.”
“Here for the party?”
“Mostly. Sometimes they can be pretty fun. I bring clients sometimes. It builds goodwill to let them meet a few stars. Usually it’s a way to pass the time.”
“The boys seem to be having a pretty good time.”
She shrugs. “The real party will start after the band gets off. I’ll check it out, I guess.”
Over the intercom, the band stops and the crowd noise comes up. “You know when they’re planning to get off?”
“Eleven-thirty.”
“That’ll be three, then.”
“Three?”
“Curtain calls. About seven minutes each, I figure.”
“You been to a few of these shows.”
“It beats television, usually.”
The crowd noise intensifies. He hears a familiar intro, but he can’t place it.”
“‘Coming Home for Keeps,’” she says. “He’ll end up with ‘Lovin’ You.’”
“You seen the show before?”
She shakes her head. “Not this one. But they’re all about the same. Save the biggest one for the last encore. I always figure that’s how they guarantee the curtain calls, by holding out the big one.”
“I guess that’s just about the way it all works.”
When Tommy has finished his last encore with “Lovin’ You,” Bad wanders over to the next dressing room. It is already packed. Cans of beer shoot up from the corner of the room like mortar shells into the crowd of people. He finds Tommy in the corner, changing his shirt.
“You’re pissed because I cut in on your set.”
“No,” Bad says, “I’m not pissed at all. Thanks.”
“You were welcome in mine. I would have appreciated it.”
“I figured you had it covered. I had albums to sell.”
“Goddamn it. Why are you busting my hump, Bad? What exactly is my fault here? What the hell do you want from me?”
“An album. Nothing more. I ain’t asking for a damn thing. You did real well on the last one.”
“I told you, you got the album. But you’ve got it when J.M.I. says they’re ready for it. I can’t do a damn thing about it.”
“Then I don’t want anything. Except to say thanks and good night.”
“Damn it, Bad. I’m trying to be friends here. Stick around. Tomorrow’s a rest day. We’ll probably have a pretty good party here. There’s booze, there’s girls, somebody’s got some pretty good blow around here. Get off your fucking high horse. Stick around and have some fun.”
“I’ve got to drive tomorrow. I’m playing Utah tomorrow night. I believe I’ll get my gear and go back to the hotel.”
“Shit. Suit yourself. Ralphie’s around here somewhere. Check with him. He’ll take care of you.”
“Right. Well, take care of yourself, Tommy.”
“You, too, Bad. I’ll be in touch on the album.”
Bad starts to work his way through the jam of people. A couple slap him on the back and say, “Good show.”
“Bad.” Tommy is behind him, still shirtless. “Write me a couple of songs.”
“Think you can walk through one without all the damn horns and strings?”
“I might manage.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
He is on his way out the back of the coliseum, carrying his guitar and amp, heading toward the parking lot.
“You packing it in for the night?” It is Linda, sitting on an amp crate, smoking a cigarette.
“I believe I’ve pretty well had it for tonight.”
“You want some company?”
“You don’t want to stick around for the big party?”
“They’re all pretty predictable, too.”
“Come on.”
In the hotel room she lights a cigarette, takes one long drag, sets it in the ashtray and begins to undress. When she is naked, she takes up the cigarette, takes another drag, sets it back down, and steps up to and begins undressing him. When she has his clothes off, she gently pushes him back to the bed, sets him down and kneels down to his cock.
He runs his fingers down her neck and back, as far as he can reach, fingering the red marks left by her underwear. She raises her arms a little so he can get to her breasts. Her body is lean and young, her skin rich and smooth, nearly white where her bathing suit has blocked the sun. Her breasts are small and firm. It has been years since he has touched a body like this, unlined, unscarred, not dimpled with fat.
The smoothness of her skin makes him conscious of his own body, the sagging belly and hairy breasts, nearly as large as hers, the sweat chilling under the air-conditioning. Under the semicircles of her buttocks, he can see the bottoms of her feet, the pink toes, and next to them, his own, white as death, his toes twisted and callused from years of wearing cowboy boots. She is methodical, urging and coaxing him on, running her fingernails gently over the skin of his inner thighs.
He leans forward, trying to get his face into her red hair, but as he leans, his belly forces her head back, her teeth scraping him. She gently pushes him back. What, he wonders, does someone as young as this, with a body like this, want with someone like him?
Later, when she is asleep, the covers pulled up to her chin, her hair splayed over her face, he eases out of bed, lights a cigarette and moves to turn out the light. He stops to look at her. She is probably twenty-five, if she is that old. He can’t remember how long it has been since he has held someone this young. He may never hold another. And beyond that, the other thought, that he misses Jean, scar, lines and fat. Given the choice, he guesses, he would trade.
Chapter Nine
He has four hours to kill before the show. He turns on the t
elevision. A thin man in a striped apron is pounding a piece of veal between pieces of plastic. “You want a larger portion? Just pound it longer.” He turns off the television.
He sits down with his guitar. He begins chording through the standard progression in E, hoping he will find a note here that will lead him to something. “Home cooking,” he thinks. There might be something there. He runs the scale a couple of times. Home cooking and home loving. Getting fat is like getting loved. He goes to the relative minor. There is something here, he is sure of it. He is also sure he doesn’t have the patience to go through all the crap he is going to have to wade through to find it.
He puts down the guitar and picks up the telephone. It is not until the desk clerk answers that he knows exactly what he is going to do. “Long distance, please. Information.”
“What city?” the operator asks.
“Santa Fe. New Mexico.”
It never occurred to him to get her phone number, and now he realizes that it may be unlisted. By the time this has settled in, the operator is back on the line, giving him the number.
“Hello,” a small voice says.
“Buddy, this is Bad, your old buddy.”
“Buddy.”
“Right. How are you doing, Buddy?”
“Watching Big Bird.”
“How’s Big Bird?”
“He talked to the policeman.”
“That’s good. Do you know the policeman is your friend?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s good, too. Is your mom there?”
“Yeah.”
“Will you go get her so I can talk to her? Then you can go back and see what old Big Bird is up to.”
The line goes dead for a few seconds, then Jean’s voice.
“This is Bad.”
“Bad?”
“Yeah. It’s Bad. How are you?”
“Where are you?”
“Utah. Cedar City.”
“What…? I mean, I’m sorry, Bad. I didn’t expect to hear from you. You caught me by surprise.”
“Yeah, me too, as a matter of fact. I was thinking about you. I just decided to call.”
“How was Phoenix? How was the show? And Tommy Sweet?”
